I drafted an answer to your questions, but I deleted it because there's nothing that I can say that you would not find searching about the subject and trying to ignore your bias. It's not productive, you know how to find different opinions about it. I would just unproductively repeat things here. It's enough to say that I agree with your starting point but disagree with your conclusions. However, I can talk about the gaslighting part.
>I have found the people who tried to debate these matters with me utterly unconvincing. I would love to be shown that this country is not what I believe it to be but that seems increasingly unlikely.
There's nothing that I can say that you aren't going to ignore, because you are smarter than me and you cannot think that your conclusions are wrong, either because you think you are 100% logical or because you don't see how your emotions are clouding your thoughts. I was exactly like that some years ago, before therapy. I would suggest the same for you, but you will probably consider that gaslighting. Again, you are smart, which makes hard to accept that you are not being rational as you think you are. A good therapist would have the tools to help you realize that.
>And my fears are not at all unfounded. They've prosecuted completely normal people who criticized them in the past. They've gone after teenagers over online comments. I'm taking risks by posting here because of my sense of justice. I'm just too disgusted and disillusioned by what's happening in this country to keep quiet about it.
I know people who spend most of their online time posting about this topic on public social media, some of their posts getting very close to death threats, every day, and nothing happens to them. Some of them works as public legislative servants, what makes them an easy target for censorships. We have elected people posting all day about it, some of them asking for military coups, and nothing ever happens to them. The probability of you getting arrested because of comments on Hacker News are so low that I cannot see that thought as something different of delusion.
> There's nothing that I can say that you aren't going to ignore
I ignore nothing. I'm just not convinced when people start claiming that there was a military coup attempt or that these judges did not engage in unconstitutional political censorship. I always explain why and leave myself open to refutation.
There's plenty you can say to me. I've incorporated quite a lot of information people have told me into my world view. For example, I learned about Trump and Musk's possible economic interests from a leftist publication that someone cited while arguing with me. That's a lot more interesting to me than tired worker's party talking points.
> therapy
I go to therapy every week. Not because of this though. My therapist's reaction to this matter was to tell me to focus on things I could directly control. Perfectly reasonable advice.
> The probability of you getting arrested because of comments on Hacker News are so low that I cannot see that thought as something different of delusion.
> I go to therapy every week. Not because of this though. My therapist's reaction to this matter was to tell me to focus on things I could directly control. Perfectly reasonable advice.
Advice you totally ignore and you keep using HN just to engage in political discussions spreading lies and fake news. Comical.
> you keep using HN just to engage in political discussions
"Just"? You make it sound like I'm some sort of sock puppet account.
Post and comment history are available on my profile page. I participated in a discussion about low level ELF hacking not even two days ago. People have submitted my GitHub projects here.
> spreading lies and fake news
Lies according to whom? You? Right.
If I'm so wrong, just refute what I'm saying with strong arguments. I'll change my tune. If you can't or won't, then just downvote the post or something. Kindly refrain from name calling and baseless accusations.
>I have found the people who tried to debate these matters with me utterly unconvincing. I would love to be shown that this country is not what I believe it to be but that seems increasingly unlikely.
There's nothing that I can say that you aren't going to ignore, because you are smarter than me and you cannot think that your conclusions are wrong, either because you think you are 100% logical or because you don't see how your emotions are clouding your thoughts. I was exactly like that some years ago, before therapy. I would suggest the same for you, but you will probably consider that gaslighting. Again, you are smart, which makes hard to accept that you are not being rational as you think you are. A good therapist would have the tools to help you realize that.
>And my fears are not at all unfounded. They've prosecuted completely normal people who criticized them in the past. They've gone after teenagers over online comments. I'm taking risks by posting here because of my sense of justice. I'm just too disgusted and disillusioned by what's happening in this country to keep quiet about it.
I know people who spend most of their online time posting about this topic on public social media, some of their posts getting very close to death threats, every day, and nothing happens to them. Some of them works as public legislative servants, what makes them an easy target for censorships. We have elected people posting all day about it, some of them asking for military coups, and nothing ever happens to them. The probability of you getting arrested because of comments on Hacker News are so low that I cannot see that thought as something different of delusion.